搖滾歌手之死 暴行貶損生命價值

His music, Wade M. Page once said, was about “how the value of human life has been degraded by tyranny.”

韋德·M·佩奇(Wade M. Page)曾經說過，他的音樂主要講述“暴行怎樣貶損了人的生命價值。”

But on Sunday, Mr. Page, an Army veteran and a rock singer whose bands specialized in the lyrics of hate, coldly took the lives of six people and wounded three others when he opened fire with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., the police said, before officers shot him to death.

但據警方透露，上週日，這位退伍軍人手持九毫米口徑的半自動手槍在威斯康星州奧克里克的錫克寺廟殘酷射殺6人、射傷3人，隨即被警方擊斃。佩奇還是一名搖滾歌手，他的樂隊熱衷於抒發仇恨.

To some who track the Movements of white supremacist groups, the violence was not a total surprise. Mr. Page, 40, had long been among the hundreds of names on the radar of organizations monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of his ties to the white supremacist movement and his role as the leader of a white-power band called End Apathy. The authorities have said they are treating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.

對於那些追蹤觀察白人至上主義組織活動的人來說，這次的暴力事件並不完全出人意料。南方貧困法律中心(Southern Poverty Law Center)一直在監測此類組織，早就已經把現年40歲的佩奇列入了數百人的黑名單，原因是他與白人至上運動有關，還擔任推崇白人優越主義的樂隊End Apathy的領隊。當局表示，他們打算將此次槍擊案作爲國內恐怖主義事件處理。

In Oak Creek and in the nearby leafy neighborhood of Cudahy, Wis., south of Milwaukee, where Mr. Page lived in the days before the attack, the magnitude and the nature of what had happened were only beginning to sink in, grief competing with outrage. A company flew its flag at half-staff. A Christian minister offered his parishioners’ help to a Sikh gathering at the Salvation Army.

槍擊案發生之前幾天，佩奇居住在威斯康星州密爾沃基南部的卡德西，那是鄰近奧克里克的一片樹木掩映的街區。奧克里克和卡德西的人們剛剛開始充分感受到槍擊事件的嚴重性以及事件的實質，心情又是哀傷又是憤怒。一家公司降半旗表示哀悼。一位基督教牧師派教民前往救世軍組織(Salvation Army)爲錫克教集會幫忙。

Peter Hoyt, 53, a neighbor of Mr. Page’s in Cudahy who often stopped to chat with him during morning walks, said he was “stunned” that the man he had known could have done something so violent. Mr. Page, he said, told him that he had broken up with a girlfriend in early June.

53歲的彼得·霍伊特(Peter Hoyt)是佩奇在卡德西的鄰居。清晨散步時，他經常停下來與佩奇聊天。霍伊特說，聽說是佩奇實施瞭如此暴行，他感到非常“震驚”。霍伊特表示，佩奇曾透露，他在6月上旬與女朋友分了手。

“He didn’t seem like he was visibly upset,” Mr. Hoyt said about the breakup. “He didn’t seem angry. He seemed more emotionally upset. He wasn’t mad. He was hurt.”

“當時他看上去並不是十分沮喪，”霍伊特談到分手事件時說。“他的樣子也不像是生氣，更像是心煩意亂。他沒有氣得發瘋，只是受了傷害。”

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Page had come to the center’s attention a decade ago because of his affiliation with rock bands known for lyrics that push far past the boundaries of tolerance.

南方貧困法律中心的資深研究員馬克·波托克(Mark Potok)表示，該中心十年前就開始注意佩奇，因爲他與一些搖滾樂隊關係密切，而這些樂隊創作的歌詞遠遠超出了大衆的容忍範圍。

“The music that comes from these bands is incredibly violent, and it talks about murdering Jews, black people, gay people and a whole host of other enemies,” Mr. Potok said.

“這些樂隊的歌曲極其暴力，講述怎樣殺害猶太人、黑人、同性戀者以及其他許多‘敵人’，”波托克說。

But Mr. Potok said the center had not passed any information about Mr. Page to law enforcement.

但波托克表示，他們沒有將佩奇的信息轉交執法部門。

“We were not looking at this guy as anything special until today,” he said. “He was one of thousands. We were just keeping an eye on him.”

“在今天之前，我們沒有給予佩奇特殊關注，”他說。“他只是幾千人中的一員。我們只是留意他的行爲而已。”

Although little known among music fans, a steady subculture of racist and anti-Semitic rock bands has existed on the margins of punk and heavy metal in Europe and the United States since at least the 1970s. Hate groups sometimes use some of the bands and their record labels for fund-raising and recruiting, according to the law center and the Anti-Defamation League.

雖然沒多少樂迷知道那些推行種族主義和反猶主義的搖滾樂隊，但從20世紀70年代起， 這種亞文化就穩定發展，一直存在於歐美的朋克和重金屬音樂圈邊緣。據南方貧困法律中心和反誹謗聯盟(Anti-Defamation League)透露，各種仇恨組織有時會利用這些樂隊和他們的唱片公司籌集資金、招募成員。

J. M. Berger, an author and analyst on counterterrorism who runs the Intelwire Web site, said Mr. Page “clearly had a history with the white supremacist movement.” A song called “Welcome to the South” by Definite Hate, another band that Mr. Page played in and that Mr. Berger found online, refers to “our race war” and asks, “What has happened to America/That was once so white and free?”

J.M.伯傑(J.M. Berger)是一名作家兼反恐分析人士，經營着Intelwire Web網站。他說佩奇“很明顯與白人至上運動有淵源。”伯傑在網上發現了一個名爲“Definite Hate”的樂隊，佩奇曾是該樂隊成員。該樂隊有一首名爲《歡迎來到南方》(Welcome to the South)的歌曲，其中提到了“我們的種族戰爭”，並且問道，“美國怎麼了/白人的天下、自由的世界哪去了？”

Although Mr. Hoyt, his neighbor, said Mr. Page had claimed that he enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11, Army records show that he separated from the military in 1998. Listed as a psychological operations specialist, he was never deployed overseas, according to the records, although Mr. Hoyt said he had talked about combat.

據鄰居霍伊特所說，佩奇聲稱自己在9月11日之後應徵入伍，但軍方的記錄顯示，1998年之後，他就與軍隊脫離了關係。根據相關記錄，他被列爲心理戰專業軍士， 從未被派往海外作戰。然而霍伊特說，他曾談論過戰爭。

“He said, ‘You go there, and one minute you’re with your buddies and the next minute you’re dead,’ ” Mr. Hoyt recalled.

“他說，‘到了戰場，可能前一分鐘你還在和弟兄們並肩作戰，下一分鐘就死了，’” 霍伊特回憶說。

A source familiar with Mr. Page’s military history, who had not been authorized to speak about the case, said Mr. Page had received an “other than honorable” discharge from the Army, suggesting that he had been pushed out of military service. Pentagon officials said Mr. Page had also been demoted, from sergeant to specialist, before leaving the service, another indication of problems.

一位熟悉佩奇的軍隊經歷，卻未得到授權談論此事的消息人士稱，軍隊給了佩奇一個“不算光彩的”解職處分，說明他是被強制退伍的。美國國防部官員說，佩奇在退伍前還曾被降級，從中士降到了專業軍士，這也表明此人有一系列的問題。

In June 1994, while at Fort Bliss in El Paso, police arrested Mr. Page and charged him with criminal mischief for kicking holes in a wall at a bar called the Attic. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, paid a $645 fine and completed 24 hours of community service.

1994年6月，在埃爾帕索的布利斯堡，佩奇因爲踢破了一家名爲閣樓(Attic)的酒吧的牆壁而被警方逮捕，警方還以刑事破壞的罪名對他提出了指控。之後，他對自己的錯誤行爲供認不諱，繳納了645美元的罰金，並完成了24小時的社區服務。

After leaving the Army, Mr. Page, a native of Colorado, lived for several years in North Carolina, where he owned a property that Wells Fargo foreclosed on in January.

離開軍隊後，科羅拉多州土生土長的佩奇又在北卡羅萊納州生活了幾年，他在當地擁有一處房產，但富國銀行(Wells Fargo)在今年一月份取消其贖買權。

Mr. Page’s stepmother, Laura Page, 67, who divorced his father more than a decade ago, described Mr. Page as “a precious little boy, a very mellow and soft-spoken person.”

佩奇的繼母、67歲的勞拉·佩奇(Laura Page)在十多年前和佩奇的父親離婚。她說佩奇是“一個寶貝小男孩，非常溫柔，說話很溫和。”

In an interview in Denver, where she lives, Ms. Page said she had known her stepson since he was 10. As a child, she said, he worshiped the guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. His aspirations and dreams all centered on music.

佩奇的繼母在現居地丹佛市接受了一次採訪， 說自己從佩奇10歲起就認識他了。她說，還是孩子的時候，他很崇拜吉他手史蒂維·雷·沃恩(Stevie Ray Vaughan)。他的抱負和夢想全部與音樂相關。

“Wade, his father and me would go camping and fishing in Colorado and have just a wonderful time, and we would play games at home, like cards and Monopoly,” Ms. Page said. “We just did the normal things that a family does.”

“在科羅拉多的時候，韋德、他父親還有我經常去宿營和釣魚，度過了一段美妙的時光。我們還經常在家裏玩遊戲，打牌或者玩大富翁，”佩奇的繼母說。“我們的家庭活動和一般家庭一樣。”

For most of his childhood, Ms. Page said, Mr. Page lived with his mother, a dog groomer, but she died when he was 13 or 14, and “he took it very hard.” He was not close to his father, she said, and after his mother’s death he moved in with a grandmother and an aunt in Colorado. He enlisted in the military after graduating from high school.

她還說，佩奇的大部分童年時光都是和他的生母一起度過的。他的生母是一位寵物狗美容師，在他十三四歲的時候去世，“這件事讓他非常痛苦”。佩奇的繼母說，佩奇和他的父親並不親近，生母過世之後，他就搬了家，跟科羅拉多的祖母和阿姨住在一起。高中畢業之後，他就加入了軍隊。

“I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine what made him do this,” Ms. Page said.

佩奇的繼母說，“我無法想象，無法想象是什麼原因讓他這麼幹的。”